They're not just snacks, they're art, painter says

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You can look, but you can't eat. A Newfoundland artist now living in Toronto has taken up painting watercolours of the most beloved snack foods from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Artist Ashley Smallwood said she started painting pictures of her favourite snacks from home when she was feeling a bit homesick.

What's your favourite snack?

Enter the St. John's Morning Show contest and suggest your favourite snack you'd like Ashley Smallwood to paint. A winner will be picked Friday morning. To enter, tweet to @sjmorningshow and @MaggieGCBC or call the morning line at 1-709-576-5259

"I thought it would be funny to get a little bit nostalgic, you know, when you're little, going to the store getting a can of Coke, a bag of sour candy and the rest in bologna, and I just started painting them and they make me smile," said Smallwood.

Her work includes convenience store staples, as well as some old-time local favourites like Vienna sausages and Purity Jam-Jams.

Smallwood said while the paintings started out as a treat for herself, other people wanted to see their favourite guilty pleasures brought to life on canvas.

Once family and friends started talking about the paintings, word travelled fast and the requests starting rolling in.

"People were asking me, 'Have you done a tin of Pepsi? Have you done Pineapple Crush?', so I started doing all these ones people were requesting, and I put it on my Facebook and made a website, and that's it," she said.

Smallwood said the paintings were the first art items she's actually sold.